


Ethical Ambiguities of Human Experimentation

by SchrodingersHalfling



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Feel-good, Fluff, Immortal Alec Lightwood, Immortal Husbands Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, M/M, Made Up Science, Melancholy, Open(ish) Ending, Pre-Epilogue, Slice of Life, made up magic (but i think that's implied)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:35:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28313178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SchrodingersHalfling/pseuds/SchrodingersHalfling
Summary: These are the things that Alec knows:1. He has always been able to feel magic in a way he knows isn't quite normal2. The New York Institute isn't just home, She's family (see 1)3. Living in a world with Immortals skewes one's perception of the aging process4. Now that he's paying attention, Alec is fairly certain heisn't(aging, that is)5. There is something strange going on (see 1, 2 & 4)
Relationships: Alec Lightwood & Isabelle Lightwood, Alec Lightwood & Jace Wayland, Alec Lightwood & The New York Institute, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 31
Kudos: 357
Collections: Suggested Good Reads





	Ethical Ambiguities of Human Experimentation

**Author's Note:**

> Hey All :)  
> Hope you're having a good holidays.

The first few times someone mentions how well he’s aged Alec rolls his eyes and shrugs it off because the older he gets the less he likes to think about the fact that he’s getting older.

But then it happens again, only this time he’s with Lydia as they walk into a mundane book store down in Queens, taking the opportunity to catch up while also picking up some information from one of Alec’s long-time informants.

"You know,” Lydia says as they stand over between the stacks, waiting for Alec’s informant to finish with a customer. “If I’d known you’d age this _well_ , I might have fought a little harder before letting Magnus steal you away from the alter.”

Alec looked up from the book he’d been considering and blinks, unsure of how to respond.

On one hand, the people who’ve commented on his looks so far tend to be people that Alec doesn’t really care about and only really knows in passing or professionally. This is Lydia, one of his closest friends despite the fact that their relationship is almost entirely sustained by email and text due to the nature of their jobs. On the other, if Magnus hadn’t existed –and thank Raziel, all the gods and any other possibly existing higher power that he _does_ – but if he didn’t, or he wasn’t in the picture for some reason, or if any number of other things had turned out different. Then yeah, Alec knows that he and Lydia could very well have made a decent marriage for themselves, could have been happy even together, in their own way.

“You can’t deny we would have made some great looking babies,” Lydia continues with a grin.

Alec doesn’t need a mirror to know he makes face at that particular comment because Lydia cackles with laughter. “There are other ways,” she says teasingly.

“I know that,” Alec shoots back, deciding he will get the book. “How do you think Magnus and I ended up with Max and Rafe?”

“Seriously, though,” Lydia says more soberly when they leave the shop, a small stack of books and some information richer. “You’re, what… 37, 38 now? You look almost the same as when we met. You’ve got to tell me what your secret is.”

* * *

But for the first time the idea sticks as something real in Alec’s mind and a month after Lydia leaves New York Alec finds himself sitting on the floor of his office with several photo albums scattered around him, some his and Magnus’, the rest borrowed from close friends and family.

For weeks now Alec’s found himself staring a bit longer at the mirror each morning than is normal for him to a point where Magnus has noticed and commented. And now, with literal photographic evidence spread out around him, Alec really can’t continue not admitting to himself that something isn’t adding up quite right.

Alec considers that it’s something magical, some curse or spell that’s been cast on him or some potion he’s been slipped, but discards the thought because Magnus, with all the times he’s used magic on Alec, would probably have picked up on something powerful enough to make Alec spontaneously stop aging.

“You think so too, don’t you,” he says aloud to his empty office as he leans back against a stone wall. A pulse of warmth goes through him and Alec pats the wall. “I know.”

So Alec goes to Izzy.

* * *

He’s careful about it. He’s got to be.

Partly because it might be nothing. Because he may just be aging _really_ well and if so, he doesn’t want to hurt Magnus with false hope.

(They’ve never talked about it outside that one argument. Alec knows he wants it, but it’s always been an unobtainable pipedream. Yes, there’s vampirism, but it’s not the right solution, not for _them_. And Alec would like to think that he knows his husband well enough by now to feel safe being sure that Magnus wants it too. But it’s just not a conversation they can have, not without breaking both their hearts because there’s never been a chance of it actually being an option.)

But if it isn’t, then Alec doesn’t want the Clave knowing for many reasons but mostly boiling down to not wanting to end up as a Clave lab rat for something that might not even be replicable.

* * *

“So, what’s up, big brother?"

Izzy lets him pretend that there’s nothing weird about _him_ being the one to drag _her_ out to dinner at a mundane restaurant until they’re sharing an obscenely rich slice of chocolate cake.

Alec sighs, knowing he can’t put it off anymore, and sets his fork down. Izzy, seeming to realise that this is more serious than she originally thought, does the same. Glancing around, Alec flicks his fingers under the table, throwing up a small ward to keep anyone from overhearing them.

“I need you to run a blood test. Of my blood. A test on my blood. Might not be blood, might be something else you need to look at,” Alec cringes as he rambles, knowing he’s rambling yet unable to stop.

Izzy’s eyes sharpen as she turns from concerned and curious little sister to the Izzy that’s always been light-years more intelligent than Alec could ever hope to be. “What am I looking for?"

Alec opens his mouth, then shuts it. Eats another bite of cake as he silently argues with himself in his mind. “I don’t know,” he says finally. “Just look for anything that isn’t as is should be. Anything odd.”

“Anything odd,” Izzy echoes slowly. “And you can’t tell me what I’m looking for because?”

“I don’t– I don’t know if it’s all, you know,” Alec motions at his own head with a hand. “In my head.”

“And you don’t want me being influenced. You want me to run a blind experiment,” Izzy says nodding in understanding.

“And Izzy,” Alec says. “Keep this between us.”

“As in from the Clave, or…”

“Between us.”

The look she gives him makes Alec feels as if he’s one of her cadavers.

“Come by the lab tomorrow morning,” she says eventually and Alec feels himself sink slightly into his seat, relieved. Jace may be his parabatai and Magnus his husband, but Izzy was the first person to know him completely and they’ve always had a bond that nothing and no one has ever been able to come between.

* * *

Eight days later Alec continues reading through and signing off on his never-ending stack of reports as Izzy walks circles in his office.

“I don’t know how you knew,” she grouses for the fifth time. “But there’s something weird going on with the work up I did of your blood. And I can’t figure out _why_.”

The last sentence is snarled out and Alec knows it’s not just because Izzy just can’t stand not being able to figure it out, but because she can’t stand to not figure out what’s going on _with him_.

“I need more blood,” Izzy says.

“Okay.”

“And more information.”

Alec scribbles his signature at the bottom of a page and sets the tablet down on his desk. Izzy’s confirmed that there is something there, which means it’s not all in his head in some twisted kind of imagined wish fulfilment. So, there’s not much harm in telling Izzy, especially if knowing what she should be looking for can help her figure out why what’s happened has happened.

Even as he’s deciding, Izzy continues. “There is something there Alec, but without knowing more specifically what I should be looking for I there’s not much more I can do just shooting in the dark. I need a direction to follow.”

Reaching for the bottom draw in his desk Alec removes the locking ward with a few careful taps of his fingers, before tracing over the locking rune carved into the wood with his stele to deactivate it. Pulling out a stack of photos, all of them copies rather than originals, he lays them out in a line along his desk. Izzy stops her pacing to watch and after taking in the line-up looks up at Alec in confusion.

“What am I looking at?”

“Me.”

Izzy frowns but goes back to examining the images. They’re all different, some candids, some posed, some more official than others, but the one thing they have in common is that Alec is in every single one.

“Alec…”

Alec picks up one of the pictures near one end of the line and holds it up beside his own face. It’s one of his favourites, a blown-up version of one of the images from when Magnus had dragged him into a photobooth in Tokyo early on in their relationship.

“This was taken on our of our first dates. Tell me you see what I do,” he pleads with her.

Without a word Izzy reaches across the desk and drags him by the front of his shirt down to her level.

“You do look older,” Izzy offers weakly, eyes flickering between his face and the photo of him.

“Not as much as I should.”

It’s true. The photos are proof of that, especially in comparison to everyone else in them.

Izzy looks more and more like their mom with every photo. Clary and even Simon lose a lot of the innocence that made them look like the children they were before they got involved in the Shadow World and something settles in Jace, making all of them look older. The kids, when they start appearing, grow like weeds.

Magnus, if anything, looks younger, but Alec knows that’s nothing to do with this and everything to do with things that aren’t relevant to Alec’s lack of aging. The fact that Alec looks older now than he did at 23 can almost entirely be put down to the way he holds himself; no longer hunching over to hide in the background, the self-worth in his posture, the happiness in his eyes and smile. And also, maybe, _just possibly_ , the introduction of some non-black, non-ancient and non-ratty clothing to his wardrobe.

“I need more blood,” Izzy says and the frustration in her eyes has changed.

* * *

Magnus finally calls him out on a rare lazy evening as they lounge on the balcony. Alec’s been restless for weeks now, only earlier in the afternoon Izzy had come back for more blood and three weeks ago Catarina, who Izzy had been consulting with since only days after Alec had shown her the photos, had reached out to Tessa. Alec’s sole contribution to figuring out what exactly was making him not age were seemingly endless samples of blood and tissue.

Max is having a sleepover with Madzie, likely an intentional move on Magnus’ part so that he can interrogate Alec and Rafael is, rather conveniently, in Idris for the week.

Alec sets his martini glass down and moves to lean on the railing, his back to Magnus and their home as he gazes at nothing in the distance. Magnus follows, hugging him from behind, just off centre enough to hook his chin over Alec’s shoulder. “Darling, talk to me. Don’t push me away."

Alec lets himself relax back into the embrace, feeling more settled than he has since before Lydia last came to New York. They’ve been together for well over a decade but the calming effect Magnus has on him never fails to amaze Alec.

Spinning around in the circle of Magnus’ arms, Alec returns the hug, clinging to his husband with just a touch too much desperation to know that Magnus really won’t ignore it now.

“I love you,” Alec mumbles into Magnus’ stolen sweater clad shoulder.

“What was that?"

A hand sinks into his hair and Alec melts into the feeling. Pulling back Alec knocks his forehead gently against Magnus’. “I love you,” he repeats. He’s said the words to Magnus more times than he can count but the meaning has yet to be diminished by the constant use.

“I love you, too,” Magnus replies, clearly humouring him. “You’ve been jittery for weeks, Alexander.”

“I can’t tell you,” Alec whispers miserably. Its own damn fault, his own decision to not tell Magnus until they’re absolutely certain, but that doesn’t mean Alec isn’t allowed to hate it.

“It’s not Clave related,” Alec continues, not entirely sure why he’s digging his own grave, but decides to blame it on the fact that Magnus, just by way of being himself, makes Alec unable to not confess to him. “Or Downworld related.”

Alec tilts his head enough so that his nose brushes against Magnus’ as the other man calmly stares him down.

“The boys?” Magnus asks.

Alec shakes his head in response. “You would be the first to know.”

“Will anyone be hurt?”

“Not physically,” Alec settles on. “Maybe, I’m not sure.”

Alec waits as Magnus contemplates what little information Alec as given him, content to admire him as he waits. “Does anyone else know?”

“Izzy does, I went to her first,” Alec says. And the way Magus smiles tells him it isn’t much of a surprise to the other man. “She got Cat to help and Cat called in Tessa.”

This particular revelation appears to calm Magnus. “Good,” his hands come up to cup Alec’s face. “I’m glad you have someone at least. May I know why you can’t tell me?” he adds, looking more curious than anything.

“I don’t want to hurt you if it turns out be nothing.” Ales murmurs, going cross-eyed as he follows the eyebrow that Magnus raises.

“But you _do_ plan on telling me?”

Alec bites not so gently at Magnus’ bottom lip, sucking it slightly between his own, instead of answering.

"Distracting,” Magnus hisses at him.

“Is it working?”

Magnus’ eyes turn golden. “You tell me.”

They both know that this is Magnus choosing to let the subject drop until Alec is ready to tell him, but it’s much more fun this way.

And somehow, the fact that Alec has acknowledged that’s, yes, he’s hiding something from Magnus, makes the weight of it easier to carry.

* * *

Izzy, Catarina and Tessa show him slides of blood and tissue, and images of slides of blood and tissue, but to Alec they just look like colourful, patterned blobs on a white background. Everything they tell him pretty much sums up to yes, there is something dodgy going on with him and it’s happening at a DNA level, but no, they do not know how or why.

Well, technically they do know that the non-aging is happening because his cells are regenerating much faster than normal. And that explains a few things, like why around four years ago when he got bitten by a particularly vicious demon he recovered over twice as fast as the other Shadowhunters that got also got bitten, some of them far less severely than he did.

In an attempt to figure out why, the three ladies had compared his blood to various types of immortals. As they had predicted would happen, the closest match was the Warlock sample. Which prompted them to compare his blood to Tessa’s, which matched even closer than the pure Warlock sample.

“You think I’m part Warlock,” Alec said finally, trying to make sense of everything they had said in amongst the science jargon.

“No.” Catarina said simply. “But it’s the only possible explanation that we can come up with.”

“How,” Alec asks, justifiably more than a little incredulous. “How is that even possible?”

"Does it matter?” Tessa asks softly, understanding in her voice and eyes. And Alec remembers, not that he’d ever really forgotten, that Tessa is both Shadowhunter and Warlock, though the balance seems to be tipped the other way for her.

“Why don’t I have magic, or a Warlock mark?” Alec asks, then frowns because maybe another question he’s always had might be finally answerable. “Is this why I can feel magic?”

Catarina and Tessa stare at him in shock. Izzy punches him.

“Alec. By. The. Angel.”

“What.” Alec demands, confused at her outburst. “Izzy, stop it.” 

“Idiot!” Izzy yells at him, not stopping her assault of his person. “That’s not normal. Did you never think to ask– Actually, I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t want to hear it.”

“Enough,” Catarina stops their bickering as Alec begins to answer Izzy anyway. “Alec, if you could explain.”

Alec flounders for a moment, lost for how to explain something he barely understands himself.

“I– I know you’re wearing a full body glamour,” he blurts out. “Not because I know what your mark is but you’re a little… _hazy_ ,” Alec winces slightly at the descriptor because it’s not accurate at all but it’s the best he’s got. “Not like an out of focus picture, but like a mirage?” he tries to clarify. “Glimmery. When you heal, your magic feels like water. Like sliding into a large body of cool, still water.”

“And Magnus’ wards. They’re like a cat, purring when I walk through them. When we were– when Valentine got the Soul Sword, that last time before he died… it was as if their hackles were raised even as they didn’t want to let me go. Max’s magic, sometimes it’s like that mundane candy, that exploding one but also like bubbles popping, and like Izzy’s laugh when she was baby. When he was younger, before it started manifesting physically it felt like a puppy, reaching out for attention. Sometimes when she’s really scared Madzie has the same feel like when you’re standing on a high ledge without a _surefooted_ rune, that split second when you regret stepping off but it’s already too late."

“Anything else?” Tessa asked when Alec falls silent.

“The Institute,” Alec said carefully. “It’s different to other magic, to Warlock magic. More… not alive exactly, but independent? conscious? A Warlock’s magic is kind of like another shade to their being, an additional part of their personality. But the institute, it’s all of Her.”

“I don’t know how to explain. Mostly it’s like…” Alec shut his eyes in frustration, pinching the bridge of his nose before beginning again in a rush. “When mom was pregnant with Izzy we still lived in Alicante. Most of the time She feels like mom did back then, like mom is now. Motherly, protective, caring. When we first moved to New York She was in pain, crying out like She was mourning. Mourning the Whitelaws, I suppose. I didn’t know back then; all I knew was She was in pain. It’s the same every time a Shadowhunter doesn’t come back, like a part of Her dies with them, it’s worse the longer they’ve been here. After the Soul Sword massacre She was screaming for months. Sometimes it feels like She’s trying to help me, guiding me to someone who needs me. Even before we became _parabatai_ I could always find Jace when he needed me, sometimes I wouldn’t even know I was looking for him until after I’d found him.”

Alec shrugged, eyes flying open when Izzy tackles him into a hug. “Alec,” she mumbled into his chest. “ _Hermano_ , you silly idiot.”

Alec wrapped his arms around her, rolling his eyes as he rested his chin in her hair. Tessa and Catarina were looking at him, the looks in their eyes something he couldn’t decipher.

“What about when you use magic?” Tessa asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have to concentrate,” Tessa elaborated. “To force Magnus’ magic to bend to your will–”

“What!? No,” Alec bursts out, horrified by the implications.

"No, it’s nothing like that,” he defends, unconsciously closing a protective hand over where the Alliance rune is permanently burned onto his wrist. “It’s easy, instinctual. It wants to help,” Alec says quickly, hoping it’s enough; not just because he doesn’t have the words to explain what using Magnus’ magic feels like, what it feels like to have this little piece of Magnus within him at all times, but because it feels far too personal to share.

He and Magnus are the only ones to have permanent Alliance runes and the bond it allows them is something far more personal and intimate than any time they spend between sheets.

His phone trills in his pocket and Alec latches on to the interruption. “I– I have to go,” he says, reading the text. “Thank you for… all this,” he motions at the images and waves a hand around in general, hoping his meaning comes across.

Squeezing Izzy one last time Alec ducks out of the lab, mind spinning.

* * *

Rafael goes back to Idris and returns subdued. Alec knows it’s because some of the classes he’d had while there had covered the Circle and Valentine.

“Did Valentine really experiment on Uncle Jace and Aunt Clary?” he asks over dinner. Magnus freezes and Alec does not miss the way the colour of his eyes flicker for a moment before settling back on brown.

“He did,” Alec says, and Magnus finally moves again.

Alec refuses to lie to his kids. And maybe a part of it is because of how messed up he was from all the lies told to him by his own parents, but whatever the reason, it’s one of the lines Alec will not cross. It’s one of the many things he and Magnus agree on when it comes to how they raise their children. That being said, they certainly don’t tell Max and Rafael _everything_ but if they ask then they’ll do their best to answer truthfully, even if that truth might be censored or simplified.

“But why would he _do_ that?” Rafael demands with childish indignation. “You and papa always say it’s not right to do anything to anyone without their consent.”

“And it absolutely isn’t right, darling,” Magnus says, pride in his voice, despite the conversation topic. Consent, Alec knows, is something Magnus feels very strongly about.

“But,” Rafael says, his confusion clear. “But they were his children. Why would he do something like that to his own kids.”

“I don’t know, Rafe,” Alec tells Rafael. He can’t explain it and if anyone could explain that to Alec he would buy them something expensive and shiny. Or maybe shots. Everyone likes shots. And they deserve it for being willing to dive into Valentine’s psyche. “I don’t think anyone can explain how someone like Valentine thinks. He was jealous of Downworlders, we know that. Jealous of their powers and abilities. That’s what a lot of his experiments were about, trying to create more powerful Shadowhunters. But Jace isn’t his son, we thought he was, but he wasn’t.”

Alec falls silent, thinking. There’s something about that sentence that makes something else fall into place in the back of his mind, he just can’t get a hold of it quite yet. He hears Rafael ask about the Alliance rune and Magnus answer that they didn’t have it until after Valentine died.

“Sorry, what?” Alec asks, pulled out of his thinking when Magnus curls a hand around his neck, his thumb coming to rest on the hinge of his jaw. And that’s when he realises that Rafael and Max have left the table, leaving Magnus to slide around to sit next to him.

“I asked what you were thinking so hard about, love,” Magnus said with an amused smile.

“Jace wasn’t Valentine son.” Alec repeated aloud. That’s the important bit. Jace never was Valentine’s son. “But he was raised by Valentine. How did he– He couldn’t have known.”

“What couldn’t he have known?” Magnus prompted.

“Valentine was too arrogant. He never would have considered that he could fail. That the Uprising would fail. That Stephen would turn on him, or Celine kill herself in the wake of his death. He never planned to raise Jace. He just took the opportunity, twisted it to his advantage.”

And that’s the thing that’s been bugging Alec. Jace was never Valentine’s son, but Valentine still experimented on him. Between Valentine actually raising Jace –despite pretending to be Michael Wayland– and making everyone think Jace was his son, it often got forgotten that Jace is actually a Herondale, especially when he tends to just get lumped in as one of the Lightwoods.

* * *

Catarina corners him the next time she and Madzie come over and informs him of the theory she and Tessa came up with after he ran out on them. That it’s highly likely that being bound to Magnus, and his magic, is part of why he stopped aging soon after he met Magnus.

Without the rune and the bond it creates it’s likely he would have gone through life as he had before meeting Magnus, healing just a touch faster than normal and with the ability to feel the magic around him. With the bond, though, Magnus’ magic has acted as something of a catalyst in activating the Warlock blood in him. Not enough give him his own magic, but just enough to kick in some of the other Warlock traits.

It certainly explains the ease and extent with which Alec is able to use Magnus’ magic, especially compared to the other Shadowhunters who had temporarily bonded with Warlocks, most of who had only been able to manage simple spells.

* * *

Going through everything of Valentine’s that Alec can get his hands on is largely an exercise in finding the time to do it without letting on to anyone and then trying to ignore that about half of what he’s reading is about his _parabatai_.

Thankfully, for all that Valentine was a genocidal manic, he was also an extremely _meticulous_ genocidal manic who appeared to have some twisted sort of reverence for the scientific method.

Compared to the numerous detailed notebooks dedicated to both Jonathan and Jace, Alec himself is granted barely more than a footnote in Valentine’s notes.

* * *

If inviting Izzy out to dinner was out of character, meeting Luke in a mundane bar is downright shady.

They catch up over their first pint and when Alec returns from the bar with a second round, he slides Luke’s over and says, “There is a reason I asked to meet.”

Luke nods, silent. Already having figured that out on his own.

His relationship with Luke has grown over the years to become something separate from their positions as leaders in the New York Shadow World, as well as from their respective relationships with Maryse and Clary and Magnus and a whole number of other people. It’s largely down to their friendship, and the respect that Alec has for who Luke is now that Alec gets straight to point.

“I wanted to ask you about the Circle.”

Luke sets down his glass. “Okay.”

“Specifically, about any children born to Circle members.”

“Oh,” Luke says, surprised. Alec figured Luke had been expecting anything but that.

“Where there any others?” he asks. “Aside from Jace, Clary, Jonathan and myself. Where there any other children born or even conceived to Circle members before the Uprising happened and Valentine supposedly died?”

“There was Michael Wayland’s son, the real Michael, that is,” Luke says eventually. “But he was never really a part of the Circle, he and your father’s relationship had already begun ending by then and he had only ever been associated with the Circle because Robert was. One of the Pangborns’ wives, I can’t remember which, she had a miscarriage. But other than that…”

“You’re sure there’s no one else,” Alec pushed.

“Apart from Jocelyn, Celine and Maryse the only other female member of the Circle was Amatis.”

“She was married to Stephen Herondale, wasn’t she,” Alec said, trying to remember.

“She was,” Luke confirmed, and then answered Alec’s next question before he could ask it. “There was an accident when we were at the Academy. She could never have kids, it’s a small part of why Valentine didn’t want Stephen with her.”

“And then she joined the Iron Sisters,” Alec muttered.

“What’s this all about, Alec?”

Luke gives him a concerned look when Alec doesn’t answer immediately.

“You can’t tell my mom. Or Magnus.”

“Alec–”

“Magnus knows I’m keeping something from him. I’m going to tell him. Eventually. I just need to figure out what _it_ is first.”

“And Maryse?”

“I don’t want to hurt her,” Alec said. “Why do think I asked you all this and not her.”

“Okay,” Luke agrees. “Whatever it is, as long as you promise to tell them eventually."

“Izzy ran some tests at my request,” he tells Luke, shifting enough in his seat to pull out his wallet and extracts the small photo. It’s the same one he used to make his point to Izzy all those months ago in his office. But the original this time, in perfect condition even after over 15 years, courtesy of a very powerful preservation spell. “The closest match they could find to my blood was Tessa’s. Her mother was an unmarked Shadowhunter who was impregnated by a demon.”

“That photo was taken during one of our first dates.” Alec handed the photo, and several sheets of paper extracted from his jacket, over to Luke and then waited as Luke looked through them, paying attention to the bits and pieces that Alec had highlighted, as well as the notes he’d added.

“And you think Valentine– On you…” Luke said, evidently coming to the right conclusion. Alec wasn’t exactly surprised. Definitely thankful he didn’t have to say it aloud just yet.

“I think you’re right about all of this. I don’t think it can be anyone else,” Luke says eventually. “It makes sense. With five children of the original Circle it doesn’t make sense for Valentine to have not experimented on all of them once we accept the fact that he had no qualms about branching out to the children that weren’t his, which we know he did because of Jace.”

“Unless I’m mistaken, the Pangborn child died during the first trimester, and that was because the mother got bitten by a particularly venomous demon while out on patrol.” It goes unsaid that they can exclude Jace, Clary and Jonathan; and that leaves only Alec.

“You’re the oldest of the lot, so there’s something logical about Valentine starting with something that’s already part human,” Luke muses as he shuffles through the papers to point out a few things that Alec had missed or passed by. “This,” he says, pointing out specific observation Valentine had written down and Alec had assumed was about Jonathan. With Jonathan born only a couple months after Alec, they were closer in age than Alec and Jace. “Maryse fell ill towards the end of her pregnancy with you. She had all the symptoms of a demon infection but they couldn’t find any traces of venom or poison in her, and by that time she hadn’t been on a hunt or anywhere close to a demon in at least three months. And the dates line up better for it being you rather than Jonathan.”

Luke is far better at figuring out which entries pertain to him and which refer to Jonathan than Alec was.

“I think he told me,” Alec admits quietly sometime later after they’d moved onto something harder, knowing that Luke would hear him even over the din of the other patrons.

“What?” Luke splutters, half chocking on the mouthful of spiked beer he’d had in his mouth.

“I didn’t think anything of it at the time. There were more pressing concerns, like the fact that he wanted to destroy the entire Down World and… well, he was crazy and desperate and I couldn’t pay it any mind because–”

“Because it wouldn’t have been the first time Valentine played mind games with you or someone you loved.” Luke finished for him. “It’s understandable, Alec.”

Alec gives him a grateful, miserable smile to which Luke responds by reaching over the table to place a comforting hand on his shoulder.

* * *

Alec would like to think that he’s better had handling major life upheavals now than he was in his early twenties.

Which is why, instead of proposing to a woman he barely knows, Alec leaves Luke, taking a shot as he goes because Valentine is still managing to turn his life upside down even from six feet under, and stops by the Institute only long enough to grab his bow, a full quiver, and a couple seraph blades, adding them to the _already tiny arsenal_ –as Magnus likes to call it– he carries on himself when he’s not on duty, before promptly leaving again before anyone can stop him. Alec detours just long enough while still down a hidden passageway no one ever uses to take comfort as She wraps him in a warm buzz that says _It’ll be alright_ and _I’m here for you_.

Instead of losing his shit and kissing a glittery male Warlock in front of half the Clave at what should have been his wedding to a perfectly respectable Shadowhunter woman so that he could keep his Institute and bring back some honour to the Lightwood name, Alec goes on a minor rampage through the streets of New York, abusing his position as Head of the Institute to make sure every time a demon sensor is tripped an alert goes straight to his phone.

It’s after the fifth pack of Galapid demons that Alec admits to himself that he doesn’t really care about the fact that he was experimented on because the truth is, he’s never known any different. He’s not like Jace or Clary, whose powers only kicked in around the age of twenty. He has never known a world where he couldn’t feel the magic around him and loosing that would be a wound worse than having an arm lopped off.

It’s not the fact that this makes him different either. He’s always been different. Alec has known that he’s gay for about as long as he’s known that no one else feels the pulling tingles he does when he walks through a portal. That no one else can guess what a Warlock’s mark is just by looking for where they glimmer and shine. That no one else can talk to their home, and have their home talk back.

And, between Alec and the Galapids, it was never the magic thing Alec took issue with.

* * *

It’s Jace who tracks him down as he hides up a tree in Central Park after tracking down and taking out the final Galapid nest and their queen.

“You going to tell me what made you hunt down an entire Galapid hoard with no back up.” Jace says in that way of his that makes it very clearly not a question.

“You remember when I got my first rune?” Alec asks in lieu of an actual answer to Jace’s concerned question.

“Yeah,” Jace draws out. “Maryse was _Maryse_ about it. What about it?”

Alec rather vividly remembers the way their mom had been about his struggles to be runed. The way they burned his soul and flickered in and out of existence on his skin. The way she’d forced the runes on him in the hopes that repeated exposure would allow him to wear them with ease. Robert had been more… _understanding_ about it, given his own struggles with bearing runes as a teenager.

“It stopped being a problem when you and I took our vows,” Alec comments. That was another thing he’d always wondered about. Most people said it was logical, but Alec had never understood why bonding with Jace had been this magical cure for his inability to wear runes easily. It made a lot more sense now. With Alec’s small, though clearly not insignificant amount of Warlock blood, and therefore naturally occurring demonic energy, it made sense that Jace’s above average amount of angelic blood and energy would be able to counter the demonic energy in Alec enough for him to wear and use runes like a normal Shadowhunter.

“It did,” Jace agrees, bemused despite it being obvious he had no idea where Alec was going with this.

“Jonathan once told me I would have been Valentine’s perfect son,” Alec tells his _parabatai_ , summoning a bottle of water to sip from.

“Too bad you’re Down World loving gay,” Jace snorts. His confusion heightening with the non-sequitur comes clear across their bond.

Yep, Alec can always count on Jace to be an absolute asshole when anyone else would be sympathetic or offer a kind word.

“There’s that,” Alec agrees and then, because there’s a _reason_ he’s Jace’s other half, adds, “And that I’m a worse failure of an experiment than Jonathan ever was.”

“I am no longer following this conversation,” Jace says bluntly. And Alec really can’t blame his brother for that, he knows full well he’s being squirrely and obscure.

Not sure of how to gentle the blow, Alec decides to just not bother. Jace knew exactly what he was getting into when he asked Alec to be his _parabatai_ , and on the off chance he didn’t, he’s had over two decades to learn. “I have Warlock blood; have had it since before birth when Valentine injected it into me and I haven’t aged in over a decade.”

It’s the first time he’s actually said the words aloud and he feels lighter for it.

“Huh,” Jace says, blinking as he processes. “Wow. Alright. You good buddy?”

“I don’t know.”

Wedging the bottle into the tree so neither of them have to hold onto it, Alec produces a sandwich and a couple apples with a flick of his wrist.

“You as Valentine’s son,” Jace muses as they pass the last apple between them, his body a pillar of comforting warmth against Alec’s side where they’re leaning against each other. “Yeah, that’s a terrifying thought. Let’s not go there.”

“I need to tell Magnus.”

“You should,” Jace agrees.

“I’m not upset about it,” Alec says instead of leaving. “I’m think I’m kind of annoyed that I never had a say in it, or how it happened. But I don’t think this is something I can hate him for.”

* * *

Alec walks through the streets of Brooklyn as the sky lightens from an orange tinted black to a steely-blue.

The wards rumble with pleasure as he walks through them, soothing him, washing over him as if checking for injuries. “I’m alright,” he murmurs, trailing his fingertips across the wall, and feels them shift against his skin as if to say _You better be_.

He hangs his bow and quiver on their hook and deposits the one blade he didn’t give to Jace and its holster in their draw.

“Good hunt?”

Alec turns around to find Magnus watching him with a soft smile on his face.

Alec of many years ago got hooked on a Magnus with golden glitter under his eyes that made him sparkle every time the light hit his face. The Magnus he first kissed wore black better than Alec ever could and had glorious streaks of fuck-off pink in his hair. Alec has loved every version of Magnus he’s seen over the years, but this is the Magnus that Alec adores and cherishes over all the others. The Magnus only he gets to see. Bare faced and with soft locks of hair flopping in his eyes, the ends of yet another sweater that was once Alec’s hanging past his fingertips and thighs.

Alec makes a mental note to pour a bottle of something halfway decent over wherever Valentine ended up and then promptly banishes the man from his mind.

Alec blindly toes off his boots, letting them lie messily on the floor in favour of cradling Magnus’ face between the palms of his hands and kissing him deeply. It’s a closed mouth kiss, just Alec’s lips pressed against Magnus’, and not risqué in any way, but still not one they would ever share with an audience as it would be too much like exposing the deepest recesses of their hearts and minds for all to see.

“Hey,” Alec greets his husband, the love of his hopefully and apparently going to be very long life, as the golden morning light streams in through the window. This is happiness, Alec thinks and from the way Magnus’ magic trills against his skin and in his heart he knows that Magnus agrees.

“I have to tell you something.”

**Author's Note:**

> this one's for the malec discord server, who gave me the courage and motivation to finally make myself an ao3 and then actually use it after lurcking on this site for years as a visitor


End file.
